Horizon Zero Dawn is a big game. It's not just big in terms of cultural impact, it's a Sony published title popular enough to earn a crossover with Genshin Impact, after all.
The world of Horizon Zero Dawn is huge, filled with secrets to investigate and lore to discover. It takes dozens of hours to fully explore it, not even counting the time spent in combat, capturing mounts, or gathering resources. Since there are so many new players that are bound to check out the first entry in the Horizon series, here's a guide explaining how long the game can take to fully complete.
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How Long To Beat Horizon Zero Dawn
While both playstyles will still have a lengthy completion time, there's a big difference between a rushed playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn and a completionist playthrough. The latter can be twice as long as the former, depending on the player's general pace and skill level.
A minimalist playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn will take about 20 hours. Even if the player only makes a beeline between each main objective, they will be regularly slowed by story beats, traversal, getting lost, and dealing with Horizon Zero Dawn's deadly machines.
A completionist playthrough, by contrast, will likely take two to three times as long, averaging out between 40 and 60 hours. There's plenty to do outside of finishing the main story, with plenty of sidequests to complete, mounts to hunt, and a skill tree to fill out between visiting each location.
No one should feel compelled to reach 100% completion with every game. But unless the player is a speedrunner, they should try to do more than the bare minimum. Horizon Zero Dawn's world is filled with beautiful vistas, and an ideal playthrough will include time to stop and smell the roses.
Going off the beaten path also might make the game easier. Horizon Zero Dawn has RPG elements, and a more experienced Aloy is a stronger and more well-equipped Aloy.
If they're still unsatisfied after beating it, there are plenty of other games similar to Horizon Zero Dawn that are available now. There's a wealth of apocalyptic open worlds in games to overcome.
Horizon Zero Dawn is available now for PC, PS4, and PS5.